CSOs decry 2019 election budget

The murmuring against committing the huge sum of N242 Billion to conducting the 2019 general elections in Nigeria has, at last, gotten the ears of the civil society in the country.
A coalition of thirteen civil society organizations is now on the warpath, decrying how N242 Billion would be needed to conduct the elections, a figure it considers not only to be curiously high but also “coming from a government that professes prudence in spending and cutting the cost of governance”.
The coalition came through in an August 16th, 2018 statement in Abuja titled “Leadership Crisis and the Imperative of the Return to Good Governance Issues: Civil Society Concerns”.
The coalition is resting its expectation on the National Assembly to scrutinize and prioritize the proposal to ensure that duplications and wastages are addressed.
But it is at a loss that the source of funding for the 2019 elections is being delayed by what it calls political gimmicks.
Calling it alarming that it took executive arm so long to send the request for approval of the budget of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), it reserves the term disappointing that “it took pleadings and public outcry for the National Assembly to consider this as a matter of national importance, thereby creating avoidable heating up the polity”.
Not only is the coalition upset with the size of the budget for next elections, it is also expressing shock that the 2016 audit report by the Auditor-General of the Federation has not elicited the attention of the Presidency as well as the National Assembly.
While it blames The Presidency for doing nothing to sanction erring MDAs indicted in the report in spite of its discourse of zero-tolerance and the disregard of due process, it chastises the National Assembly for equally not doing so through her Committee on Public Accounts.
According to the coalition, the report made damning revelations depicting what it calls gross violations of the Constitution and financial regulations by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).